Vacuum processing apparatuses are known to perform processing such as the film formation of a plurality of substrates to be processed while passing through the inside of the vacuum processing apparatus and being placed on a substrate holder, such as a tray.
Among such vacuum processing apparatuses, one having an annular conveyance path is also known. Furthermore, a transfer step includes introducing (loading) substrates to be processed and discharging (unloading) processed substrates.
According to the configuration of the conventional technique, the substrates to be processed go through each process while moving from the loading position to the unloading position along the annular conveyance path formed within a horizontal plane, and with the processing surfaces of the substrate to be processed maintained horizontal.
As a result, according to such a conventional technique, the substrate surfaces to be processed and the area of the auxiliary equipment, including the transfer equipment, are added in the horizontal direction. If the annular track is provided in a space between the processing surface and a plane parallel to the processing surface, even when the annular track extends in the vertical direction, such an area of the equipment is added to the area of the substrate surfaces.
According to the conventional technique, the tray is configured such that a plurality of rows times a plurality of columns of substrates are placed thereon. All the processing region and the auxiliary equipment therefore need to have a size that can fully cover the surface area of the tray. Thus, the foregoing problem of the conventional technique has been a major obstacle in order to reduce installation space.
Now, there is a case where a tray on which substrates to be processed are placed in a row, and a plurality of such trays is placed in a conveyance direction. In such a process, processing starts on the substrate placed at the top of a tray and completes processing on the substrate at the end of the tray. This process inevitably needs a redundant processing region that covers both the lengths of the second to last substrates when the processing of the substrate at the top of the tray starts, and the lengths of the substrate at the top of the tray to the one substrate before the end of the tray when the processing of the substrate at the end of the tray is completed. Therefore, there is a problem of insufficient space saving.